Tuesday, May 01, 2012Last Update: 11:58 AM PT

State Wants to Settle With Religious Objector

HONOLULU (CN) - Hawaii's Senate is considering a bill to pay $100,000 to a civil rights activist who was roughly ejected after protesting the prayer that opens Senate sessions. The Hawaii Senate Finance Committee has received ce Committee has received a bill to settle for $100,000 claims that public safety officers assaulted a civil rights activist as he peacefully protested prayer in the Legislature. Attorney General David Louie and Deputy Attorney General Carol Inagaki asked the House Judiciary Committee for $100,000 to settle the claims of Mitchell Kahle and Kevin Hughes. Kahle, the founder of Hawaii Citizens for Separation of Church and State, and Hughes, a cameraman, sued the state and eight officers of the Senate, Sheriff's Department and the Department of Public Safety, in Hawaii's First Circuit Court. Officers arrested Kahle after he protested the customary religious invocation that opened the last day of the 2010 legislative session at the Capitol building. Hughes rolled film as the officers allegedly assaulted him and Kahle. Their case was removed to Federal Court, and the parties settled in the judge's chambers last week. U.S. District Judges Kevin Chang and Leslie Kobayashi had presided. Kahle said he sent three emails to state House and Senate members in the days before the final session, asking that they not begin legislative sessions with prayer. He wrote that members of his citizen organization would interrupt the prayer with "peaceful acts of civil disobedience," if "unconstitutional Christian prayers" continued. "All legislators are ethically, legally, and honor bound to treat all citizens fairly and equally," the letters said, according to the complaint. "The legislature should cease and desist of all unconstitutional and unethical reli[gious] activities and apologize to the majority of Hawaii citizens who are not Christian," Kahle wrote, citing his own letter in his complaint. (Brackets as in complaint.) At the session of April 29, 2010, Kahle informed the Lieutenant of Security Daryl Naauao of his plans to stage a peaceful protest. When then-Senate President Colleen Hanabusa introduced a reverend, who asked everyone to "bow with me in prayer," Kahle stood and said, "I object, my name is Mitch Kahle, and I object to this prayer on the grounds that it violates my rights under the Constitution of the United States." Kahle's display lasted "approximately 9 seconds," and he immediately sat back down "quiet with his hands folded in his lap," according to his complaint. He says Sergeant-at-Arms Bienvenido Villaflor and Sheriff Deputy Freddy Carabbacan then forcefully removed him. The bill now pending before the Senate acknowledges that "some sort of scuffle" occurred between Hughes, Kahle and Senate security personnel, and that it included Kahle's "remov[al] from the chamber by the Sergeant-at-Arms with the assistance of deputy sheriff personnel." Hughes filmed the incident, and "in the melee, his camera was shoved into his face causing minor injuries and damaging the video camera," the bill states. Kahle and Hughes called the "scuffle" a "gang-style attack" that landed Hughes in the emergency room. Kahle says he was also subjected to an unprovoked assault behind closed doors. Villaflor, the sergeant at arms, is described as a former professional fighter and World Boxing Association champion. He allegedly beat Kahle with help from defendants Carabbacan, Naauao, Doyles Arakaki, Daniel Kwon, Raymond Schwartz and Betty Muraki. Before the attack, "Kahle had not committed any violation of law and sheriff deputies did not have probable cause to arrest [him] for any crime," according to the complaint. But Kahle says the officers took him in handcuffs into a rotunda elevator, where they "slammed Kahle, face first, against the side wall of the elevator," and "took turns assaulting [him] ... giving him body blows." When the elevator door opened, Kahle says, he was taken "down the hallway to a Public Safety Office, located in the basement (chamber level) of the Capitol." (Parentheses in original.) He says the assault resumed there, with officers "slamming Kahle to the floor so hard that he spun around and crashed into a cabinet, breaking the cabinet door." Kahle was acquitted of disorderly conduct. Judge Leslie Hayashi said the state had violated his civil rights in the incident. Kahle was set to pursue his civil case against Hawaii in June, with help from the Hawaii branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. Courthouse News has been unable to ascertain what actions, if any, Hawaii has taken against the public safety officers in the incident, or how frequently state officials invoke prayer in the Honolulu Capitol sessions. Kahle and Hughes were represented by Stephanie Marn and James Bickerton of Bickerton Lee Dang & Sullivan.